


Second Verse, Same as the First

by riverlight



Category: due South
Genre: Canada, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, post CotW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverlight/pseuds/riverlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years in which Ray Kowalski acquires a Stetson, has a serious fling with the Tim Hortons at the Yellowknife airport, makes friends with a four-year-old, gets freaked out by a loon, feels vaguely spiritual about the Northern Lights, and falls in love with Benton Fraser without noticing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Verse, Same as the First

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happy29](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happy29/gifts).



Last time I was in Yellowknife, I got a Stetson like Fraser's. Felt appropriate; you're in Canada that much, you gotta get a Canadian hat, right? Course, I don't iron mine; I may be spending a lot of time up in the Northwest Areas but so far craziness ain't catching. I wear it a lot, though. I like it. Makes me feel like a cowboy or something, one of those guys in the old movies with their horses and their guns, out alone under the big empty sky. Like John Wayne. “Out here a man settles his own problems.” Not taking shit from anybody, and no one to worry about but my own self. 

Yeah, that's me. Ray Kowalski, cowboy. 

I told Fraser that the other day, and he thought I was hilarious, I could hear it. Got that tone in his voice where he wants to laugh but feels like he's gotta be polite and proper so unless you know him real well you can't tell. "A cowboy, Ray?" he said. "I wasn't aware there were any cowboys left in Chicago." He paused. "Though there was that gentleman we met once over at that steakhouse while on the Molloy case, do you remember him?" And then we were both laughing, 'cause that guy was the nuttiest of nuts, seriously whacko, just totally off his rocker. Called himself the Gay Cowboy, had this whole act. When we met him, he was wearing a pink hat and purple chaps with his ass hanging out, and believe me that was not an ass you want to be having on public display. Seriously.

Anyway, like I said, Fraser thought it was funny—"Do you have any chaps, Ray?" he'd asked, and then laughed so hard he ended up having to hang up the phone 'cause it made Dief start barking—but I was kinda serious. Some days I just feel, I dunno, like it's me against the world, or something. Mostly I love this city, but some days I just get tired of it. I don't know what Fraser did, all those years he was down here. Hung out in the park, I guess. Me, if I was him, I'd have been drunk a lot, but Frase, he didn't go for that. I think he got kinda lonely, sometimes. 

So I got this new partner now. Reilly. He's a good guy, a good cop. Different than Fraser—not so much with the walking up to bad guys with guns, for one thing—but we work together okay, which I guess is good. I thought it was gonna be weird in the beginning, but Welsh has got me figured, I guess, 'cause it's working out all right. Coulda been a lot worse. I could have ended up with Dewey, or, God help me, Johnson, who was looking for a partner, but Reilly's all right. 

"Nice hat, Ray," he says to me when I come in, and grins. He gives me shit about it, about me spending so much time with my weird Canadian ex-partner, I mean. But, you know, whatever, right? We were partners, me and Fraser, of course we're gonna keep in touch. And he doesn't do it in a mean way at all, just teasing, so I'm fine with it. He's pretty cool, really.

"Hey, don't knock the hat," I tell him. He laughs. 

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," he says, and grins. "It's your thinking cap, you can't solve cases without it, right? Gives you that weird Canadian mojo." 

"Damn straight," I say, and he laughs. 

"Hey, whatever it takes," he says, and passes me the Bukowski file. But I'm a man on a mission, this morning, and pass it right back to him. 

"Have a ball," I say. "I'm just here to hand in my timeslip and then I'm outta here, Reilly, do your own filing." He laughs, and I duck into Welsh's office. Welsh's got the phone jammed under his chin and is shuffling through the papers on his desk. "Uh huh," he says to the person on the other end, nodding at me. "No, that's correct. Yes, sir…no, sir." He's scowling.

"Want me to go?" I mouth at him, but he shakes his head, so I sit. A moment later he hangs up.  

 "Politicians," he says, disgustedly. "They want 'belt tightening' on budgets like you wouldn't believe." He makes finger quotes on 'belt tightening' and everything, and I laugh. 

"Oh, I'd believe it," I tell him. "You should see the computer they've got Fraser using, up in Run-amok-luk. Too damn cheap to buy him something new." 

"Ah, Fraser," Welsh says. "How is the good Corporal?" 

"I'll tell you in a coupla weeks," I say. "I'm on the 12:59 flight, I gotta get to the airport, but I just wanted to give you this." He takes my timeslip, and I stand up. 

"Right," he says. "Be well. Don't get, uh, bitten by any moose up there, or anything." He's got a good handshake for an older guy, Welsh, still strong and solid. 

"That was _one time,_ and it wasn't a moose, if it was a moose I'd have been dead, deader than dead, I'd be an ex-cop," I say, but Welsh is laughing, like, whatever, whatever, get outta here, Kowalski, so I get. 

*

Fraser picks me up at the airport, like fifteen thousand hours later ("Not that long, surely, Ray," he says, and I tell him "sure felt like it, buddy," but he brought me a triple-grande-size-of-your-head mocha latte, closest you can get to candy-in-your-coffee in an airport, so I'm willing to drop the argument). "Ray, Ray, Ray," he says, like he always does, all happy to see me, and Dief barks, loud enough that the people in the airport turn and look, and if this was Chicago maybe some asshole in a uniform would come up and hassle us about having a dog in a public area, but since it's Yellowknife and Fraser's in his uniform they just smile. 

"Hiya, Dief, glad to see you too, ya mutt," I say to him, and ruffle his head. Fraser gets a hug, of course. "Good to see you, Frase," I tell him, because it is, and you can't teach an old dog new tricks, mostly, but at least I've learned to say things like that out loud. He gets all pink, and smiles. "You too, Ray," he says. 

On the drive out to Fraser's place we catch each other up; we talk on the phone, but it ain't the same. "I had to apprehend Timmy Natoosiq," he tells me, "you remember him, Bobbie Natoosiq who owns the diner's son?" and yeah, I do remember him, he was a good kid. "I thought he was doing okay with his community service," I say, but Fraser shakes his head no and Dief barks, so apparently I missed something in the never-ending saga of Timmy Natoosiq while I was busy chasing down Mr. Bukowski and his charming associates. Fraser's explanations take us through the center of town, and then I catch him up on everyone in Chicago, pass on Frannie's greetings and Ma Vecchio's and Welsh's. Describing the Bukowski case takes us all the way to Fraser's place, and by then I'm beat. 

Course, it's still light even at midnight, but my body doesn't care; I've been traveling for twelve hours. I'm not getting any younger, I guess, and isn't that a barrel of laughs? Can't really complain, though, 'cause Fraser's got a real honest-to-God guest room with my name on it. I'm not kidding, it actually does have my name on it; Eddie MacDonald, who's Fraser's nearest neighbor's kid who Fraser takes care of sometimes, drew me a picture, and Fraser hung it on the door. Since Ray Vecchio's the only other person who comes up here, it works out fine. 

"Go, Ray," Fraser says, and dumps my bag by the bed. "We'll catch up in the morning." And apparently airport coffee's no match for Fraser's grandma's sheets and his pile of hand-me-down quilts, 'cause I'm out like a light.

* 

We've been doing this long enough we've got a ritual. Course I've gotta stop in and say hi to everyone at the RCMP post, greet Constable MacPherson and thank him for always taking my messages (we're practically buddies, at this point, the number of times Fraser misses my calls for being out in the field). A couple of times early on Fraser dragged me to the Northern Heritage Centre, but since we saw most of the things in the exhibits in real life while we were off on the Quest, we mostly don't bother. Instead we'll do lunch at the diner, say hi to Bobbie Natoosiq, then stroll around town. Fraser used to be kinda shocked that I wanted to, but it always takes me a while to settle in to being up here. 

It's different in a way I couldn't have anti—anti—expected before I came up here the first time. It's a city, sure, has public transportation and everything, but it's—well, tiny, for one thing, but wild. Sure, there's skyscrapers, or what passes for them here, but—the sky's _right there,_ and there's water everywhere. I told Fraser once that I thought the northern lights were like something big breathing. I thought he'd laugh, 'cause I’d had a couple of scotches to keep me warm, but he didn't. "You know, Ray, that's always been part of some First Nations' beliefs," he said, and yeah, I could see it. Feels different, is what I'm saying, and it takes me a while to get used to it. 

So that's what we do the first day. The second day if Fraser doesn't have to go in to the detachment we usually do something outside. Fraser being Fraser there's always something he wants to show me: turtles in the marsh, one time, another time some baby birds in a nest. Once we waited till dusk and went out to the other side of Trapper Lake in the four-wheeler, and saw a family of beavers. 

This time he's got two little kayaks down by the lake. He gives me coffee and a biscuit (which is the Trapper Lake equivalent of a bagel; they've got 'em, in Yellowknife, but Fraser refuses to drive into town to get 'em. "Because cooking me _biscuits_ is so much easier," I said to him, the first time, and "Fraser, you are crazy, you are a crazy man, this is not easier, in no way is this easier," but he's stubborn as fuck, and in all honesty it probably isn't easier now that there's a Tim Hortons north of the airport, but he does it anyway because "it's the principle of the thing, Ray, a man has to be self-sufficient out here; convenience food cripples you in the long run")—anyway, he gives me breakfast, a cheese biscuit this time, and drags me out. Course he got up hours ahead of me; he’s probably had not only breakfast (if you count oatmeal, which he does and I do not) but enough fresh air to last me days, already.

"No way, nuh-uh, Frase, I'm not doing it," I say, when I see them. "I can't swim, remember?" 

"You don't have to swim, Ray," he says. "They're boats." Smug bastard. 

"Uh huh," I say, 'cause no way I believe that for a minute. "What are the life vests for, then?" 

"Ray, you swam admirably that time in the Henry Allen," Fraser says, as if that's any kind of answer. "You'll be fine." 

And of course, I end up caving. Takes him a good ten minutes of wheedling and looking—whaddya call it, it's like something right out of Ma Vecchio's TV stories—downcast. That man can look downcast like nobody's business. Of course I cave. Put up a good show, but it's all part of the game. He pretends to be reluctant when I try to drag him out for pizza or Chinese sometime around day three or four, but that doesn't mean he doesn't _want_ it.

It's amazing, is the thing: the lake's still, this early, and it's quiet. Seriously, for-real quiet. You don't get quiet like this in Chicago. There's always sirens, cars, people talking, people shouting. Up here it's—nothing. Or, well. Birds. Animals. (Not that I know what they are, of course, but Fraser does, and if I get real curious I can always ask him. Which I do not, because I don't care. Except for the loons, 'cause those are freaky.) Wind in the leaves. The lake lapping. 

And here's me, Stanley Ray Kowalski. Here I am in the middle of it, my ass getting dents from this tiny wooden seat, one thin plastic skin away from drowning in the middle of the Northwest Areas, and I—fucking—love it. Who'da thunk it? I spent my whole life loving Chicago, and somehow when Fraser left I started loving Canada too. And now instead of wasting my vacation days getting drunk or some stupid shit, I get two weeks up here twice a year, my very own collection of stylish red underwear in a closet in Fraser's house, and all the Oh Canada jokes that Reilly can come up with in the meantime, which let me tell you is a larger number than you ever knew existed. And I don't even care, that's how cool I am about it. 

And that's what I'm thinking about when I glance up, and notice Fraser looking a little pale. “Hey, Frase, you okay?” I say, and then, boom, Fraser goes overboard. Just like that: slump, splash, and he's gone. Sinking. One minute he's resting his hands on the paddle, oar, thingy, looking around all interestedly at the shore and the sky and whatever else it is he loves out here, and then boom, he's underwater. For a moment all I can do is blink at the place where he was sitting, but thank God I get my act together and dive over after him, 'cause, oh God, he ain't coming back up. 

The life vest does its thing, luckily, keeps me floating, but it seriously cramps my style 'cause I can't get down to Fraser quick at all. Only while I'm flailing around in the water (oh God oh God) my feet hit something and—hey, whaddya know, apparently we're in all of five feet of water, here. I get my hand tangled in Fraser's henley and haul him up to the shore. 

All of this takes longer than it sounds like it does, 'cause Fraser's _heavy,_ and I'm all stumbling around trying not to scrape him up on the shore which is mostly made of rocks, and maybe that's my excuse for why it takes me so long to figure out he's _not breathing._ I stare at him for a moment, and it's ridiculous but my first instinct is to _call Fraser,_ 'cause what else do I do in a crisis? Except that's a no-go, and I guess this is what he means by self-sufficiency and "man has to rely on his wits in the Territories, Ray," 'cause there's no one out here gonna save him unless I do. 

And maybe it's that he mentioned the Henry Allen earlier, but that's all I can think of, and I seal my mouth over his, and heave a breath through my nose, and _breathe._ "Come on, Fraser, come on, come on," I'm chanting, only in my head because I can't talk and breathe for us both at the same time, and it feels endless, but eventually he does, gasps a little and then coughs and rolls over on his side and spits up half of Trapper Lake all over the stones and all over me. 

"Ray," he's saying, weakly, when I tune in, "Ray, I'm fine, really," because apparently I tuned out for a minute or three and I'm still clutching his face between my hands. "Ray. Ray. Come on, let's go back up to the house, I'm fine, Ray, really," and it's not till we get up to the house that I realize I'd been kissing him, kissing his face and his mouth and his wet hair, kissing him all over. 

*

And apparently he is fine, totally fine, in fact. Benton Fraser: King of Fineness! We get up to the house and he submits to Dief's anxious inspection, but once that's over it's all "I'm going to fetch a clean shirt, Ray, I'll be right back," and "it's nothing, Ray, just hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, it happens sometimes," and "thank goodness you were there, Ray, it could have ended badly for me," as if he hadn't come this close to _drowning._

And hey, two can play at that game, 'cause I can be fine, too, finer than fine, the finest. "Hey, Frase, no problem, buddy, what's a little air between friends?" I can say, or maybe "yeah, Frase, you do that, get outta those damp clothes," or "Yeah, sure, I know how it is, you were so glad to see me you forgot to eat, ha ha, happens to me all the time, too," only, wait! I can't! 'Cause, oh yeah, Fraser almost _drowned._ But I'm sure as shit not gonna talk about how apparently 'Ray loves Canada' is true on multiple levels, either, and we can't talk about one without talking about the other, so mostly I don't say anything and we sit in silence while Fraser takes a hot shower, and I take a hot shower, and we have lunch, and we have coffee.

Only after about two, three hours of that I can't take it no more, and you know, the shitty thing about that whole 'saying what you mean' thing is actually saying what you mean, but apparently once you've picked up the habit (thanks, Stella) you can't stop, 'cause I just burst out with it. "Frase, okay, I can't, I gotta talk about this," I say, because if nothing else, the way Dief keeps looking anxiously between the two of us is _freaking me out._

And I've had two or three hours to think about what Fraser's gonna say, and how's gonna say it: maybe it'll be Kindly Explaining Fraser, all "we talked about this, Ray; buddy breathing's just something that happens between friends." Maybe it'll be Insanely Frustrating Fraser: "I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, Ray; I certainly would have noticed if you kissed me, Ray; it must have been a stress-induced hallucination, Ray." 

Maybe it'll be Wildly Stubborn Fraser, which, I've gotta admit, is pretty much the default model, so I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out with "I don't want to talk about it, Ray," and keeps on not talking about it until I get back on the plane to Chicago, and wouldn't that just suck titties, 'cause yeah, sure, John Wayne was a damn good cowboy and all, but even Duke usually had a partner. 

Only what I get is Fraser tumbling back against the back of the couch out of his guarding-the-Consulate posture, saying "Oh, thank God, Ray," and looking utterly relieved. 

Which means, okay, maybe we aren't outta the woods yet (hah), but he hasn't punched me in the face this time, yet, either, so I guess maybe I can say it, and surely three years of partnership and three years of friendship count for something? So I say, "Frase, that wasn't buddy breathing," and then, so that he can't pretend to misunderstand me like he used to do, "I mean, Frase, that didn't feel like buddy breathing to me." 

"You said that _last_ time," Fraser points out, only, whaddya know, his voice is a little shaky, and okay! good! so at least I'm not the only one freaked out here. 

"Exactly!" I say, and do a little shimmy in my seat, because that is it, that is it exactly. "No one else gets into these situations, Frase," I say. "Me and Reilly, we've never once hadda do buddy breathing. Huey and Dewey? They didn't even have a first time, much less a last time. They," I say, and point my finger at him, "never did buddy breathing, Fraser." 

"I wouldn't know," Fraser says, and yeah, there we go, there's Wildly Stubborn Fraser. But this time, this time he's gonna get it. No hiding this time, Fraser buddy. 

"It didn't feel like buddy breathing _last_ time, and it didn't feel like buddy breathing _this_ time either," I say. Now he's wearing a face I don't recognize but think might, maybe, be Scared Freaked-Out Fraser, so I gentle my voice a little. "I'm just saying, Frase," I say. "Maybe you and me? Maybe there's something a little queer going on here, and maybe we just needed a while to recognize it." 

And: yup. That's Fraser over there, looking terrified. Time was, I might not have recognized it; time was, I mighta given him a hard time. Six years on, though, I kinda maybe know this guy a little better than I used to, so the scareder he looks, the braver I feel, and it's easy somehow to fall off my armchair and knee-walk over in front of him. "You don't want it, Frase, that's fine," I say, looking up at him. "I'm serious. You don't want it, we'll do our normal thing for the rest of this trip and then I'll get back on the plane to Chicago and next time we see each other it'll be friendly like always and water under the kayak." Frase smiles, just a little, so I forge ahead, because Fraser is a beautiful, beautiful man, and I have no idea why it took me six years to notice. "But Frase, I thought it was queer then and I think it's queer now, and I think we should do something about it, 'cause we're still partners, you and me, and that's gotta mean something." 

Fraser sighs, and I feel his breath gust out over my face. "It scares me," he says. 

"I know, Frase, I know," I say, 'cause I do. "I think it'd be good, though." My knees are starting to hurt, but I don't care, because Fraser's looking down at me with big eyes, and he looks scared, but he also looks—hopeful. 

"I don't know what I'm doing," he confesses, and there it is, ladies and gents, things are about to get real, 'cause Benton Fraser just admitted he doesn't know what he's doing. 

But luckily this ain't my first rodeo, so to speak, and I do know. So I tell him so. "I do, Frase," I say. And then, because, hey, we can't all be romantic, "my knees are killing me, okay? So maybe can I come join you on the couch, already?" 

Turns out I can. And we don't get off that couch for another hour, either. And Benton Fraser's lips are mighty soft, and even better to kiss when they're warm and full of life. 

*

So now we've got a few new rituals. Pizza and Chinese and outdoor adventures are joined by long nights in bed with the windows thrown open (in summertime) and long nights curled up together in front of the fire (in winter), and sometimes after dinner at Bobbie's we go to the movie theater and Fraser lets me hold his hand, and I got more than just the long underwear in Fraser's closet, now. And sometimes, on our anniversary (which I pretend not to remember but do anyway) or on other days just because, we drag blankets down to the lake and I lie on top of him and cup his face in my hands and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and he kisses me back.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh _man,_ I'd forgotten just how much I love writing these two. Thanks, happy29, for giving me the chance! I couldn't deliver on the angst—I'm just not built that way, with this fandom—but hopefully two outta three ain't bad (as RayK would say) and you'll be okay with the post-COTW and the buddy breathing. I hope so!
> 
> Beta by the lovely luzula, to whom many thanks for incisive comments on pacing and Ray-voice! I appreciate it. Thanks also due to C., though she'll likely never see this as she's not actually fannish except by virtue of the fact that she lives with me and puts up with my crazy whims. *g*


End file.
